Paedophiles to be lured by police on internet

By Sean O'Neill

12:00AM GMT 15 Feb 2001

THE Home Office is considering a revision of the law on entrapment to give detectives essential new powers to tackle the use of the internet by paedophiles.

An estimated four million children are online in Britain, a million of them under the age of 14. They are vulnerable to paedophiles who exploit the anonymity of the internet to create and distribute pornography and to make contact with children.

"We think the police need to be given the clear power of entrapment and adequate resources to tackle the growth of crime on the web," said John Carr, an internet consultant with NCH Action for Children.

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The FBI's Internet Crimes Against Children task force can go into chat rooms where illegal activity is suspected, make contact with offenders and arrange to meet them. Since 1995 more than 2,000 men have been convicted in America for internet sex offences following sting operations. Californian police tracked a British man who used a fake paedophile website to search for a six-year-old girl for sex.

Kenneth Lockley, 28, of Derby, who helped to design the Lara Croft computer game, went to a hotel to meet a child but was confronted by Scotland Yard officers. Lockley was jailed last year for 18 months for trying to incite an undercover officer to procure a child for sex.

A woman was so horrified to discover child pornography on her husband's computer that she reported him to police, a court at Trowbridge, Wilts, heard yesterday.

Deborah Stevens, 38, found that her husband Paul, 51, a male nurse, had downloaded a catalogue of images. Stevens, of Chippenham, Wilts, admitted 20 charges of making indecent photographs. Sentence was adjourned until March 12.